FORD'S THEATRE. Those two words
will forever haunt the American con
sciousness, evoking a sense of loss and
bittersweet thoughts of the gentle, sorrow
ing man who led this Nation through four
years of fratricidal war.
The building where Abraham Lincoln was
shot stands at 511 Tenth Street Northwest,
in the busy heart of Washington, D. C. Today,
after more than a century of blackout, Ford's
stage lights are up again. Once more audi
ences applaud actors as in the days when
President Lincoln found respite there from
the problems and heartbreak of the Civil War.
Stage and house, inside and out, have been
restored by the Federal Government to look
as they did on April 14, 1865, when John
Wilkes Booth fired the fatal bullet in Box 7.
The return of John Ford's old playhouse to
its original role gives the Nation's Capital a
unique and fitting monument to Abe Lincoln,
who loved drama and the theater.
It also offers modern playgoers a new and
needed stage for the performing arts. And for
good measure, it contains a handsome muse
um displaying intimate and graphic memen
tos of the man "of laughter and tears," as
poet-biographer Carl Sandburg called him.